Friday, November 14, 2008

Today's Hi and Lois offers an exploration of discord across generations, pitting the smugness of the young against the seething rage of the old(er). Rage! — sing, goddess, the rage of Hiram Flagston!

The bookcase sums up the imaginative impoverishment of these characters: it functions as a display surface for a baseball, the bookends keeping three books from toppling to ruin. And yet the same bookcase is a goad to the reader's imagination: for what's up with that E?

It might stand for Elaine, who suggests that it fell from one of the books. I thought it might be a note to the colorist, though the bookcase isn't ecru. Or is E for enigma? I may never know.

If I were Lois, I'd be spending a lot of time at the "new" office (i.e., the office with the sign facing the street).

I sometimes wonder whether the seeming carelessness is in fact some very inside joke. If the E is from a kid's crayon, that would suggest that the time that passes between Hi and Lois panels is, in theory, unlimited.

- Browne spells his name from right to left, starting with the "E", and realized too late that there wasn't room on the shelf for the whole thing?

- If it were red, it could have been a symbol for "ready".

- If it were a "9", I could have made a "7 ate 9" joke when it failed to reappear on the next panel.

- I actually only have the one theory, which even I recognize is pure garbage. I am more thoroughly confused by this very nicely-lettered "E" than by anything else I've seen in Hi & Lois. Perhaps THAT was the intent?

“Orange Crate Art” is a song by Van Dyke Parks and the title of a 1995 album by Van Dyke Parks and Brian Wilson. It is, to my mind, one of the great American songs: “Orange crate art was a place to start.” Comments are welcome, appended to posts or by
e-mail.

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